


Steve Rogers versus Popular Music

by Awesomecake



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Eurovision, Fluff, Gen, Happy, Inspired by Music, Music, Pre-Slash, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesomecake/pseuds/Awesomecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes wherein Steve Rogers gets to know the music of the late 20th/early 21st century. </p><p>Set after the events of The Avengers, but before The Winter Soldier. Doesn't contain any spoilers for the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steve Rogers versus Popular Music

**Author's Note:**

> The punk section veers into a kind of self-harm territory, everything else is mostly fluff. 
> 
> I might add to this, if I think of more musical phenomena Steve needs to know about. I might also make it into a series where Steve discovers pop culture in general, but we'll see.
> 
> Not beta'd, so feel free to point out any mistakes you find.

Every now and then he'll ask random people to suggest something for him to listen to. It doesn't take long before he's ticked off Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Tupac Shakur, Nirvana, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, The Ramones, Eminem, and other cornerstones of modern music history. He doesn't like all of it; hell, he doesn't even understand all of it, but he's starting to see how everything is connected, and how the sound of one artist might lead to something completely different, but still related, decades down the line.

One day he asks Maria Hill for recommendations, and she asks what he's been given so far. She listens thoughtfully to the names he gives, and then she excuses herself. Not half an hour later she returns with a list featuring dozens of names, all female, from Marian Anderson (whom he remembers from his first life) to Lady Gaga, via Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, The Supremes, Carole King, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Queen Latifah, Enya, Alanis Morissette, Spice Girls, Beyoncé, and many more.

Once again not everything is to his liking, but he realises that keeping track of the accomplishments of only the male half of the human population is the wrong way to go. He mentions this to agent Hill the next time he sees her, and is rewarded with a rare smile.

 

<><><>

 

It takes a while before he realises that auto-tuned singers aren't actually robots. He'd assumed that they were, since so much of the entertainment industry these days is pure make-believe and fabrication, but apparently there are real artists who think their voices sound better when run through a computer. This makes him wonder what an _actual_ computer singing would sound like, which is why, the next time he visits Stark Tower, he asks JARVIS to sing something for him.

JARVIS is quiet for a few moments, then a jaunty beat starts up. It's jazzy and modern at the same time, and the tune the AI sings is a happy ditty about hanging out in a park with Captain America and just enjoying the sunshine. Steve finds it impossible to stop grinning, and when the song's finished he gives an earnest applause.

Two weeks later he gets a call from Tony, who asks if he knows how and why JARVIS wound up having a track called “Song for the Captain” topping the charts in eastern Europe. Steve just laughs.

 

<><><>

 

Bucky always called him a punk, so it's perhaps not wholly surprising that there's something about punk rock that appeals to him. Something about the jaded discontentment, the sharp eyes and tongues turned on the bourgeois and complacent. Some of it is too screechy and chaotic for him to fully appreciate – he still prefers music that has some semblance of melody, after all – and if anybody asks he'll still name good ol' big bands as his favourite thing to listen to, because they are.

But every now and then he'll see or hear something that makes him wonder if the collective intelligence of the human race hasn't dropped radically since the Forties. Every now and then he starts to feel hemmed in, like a wild tiger in a cage, performing tricks and getting patted on the head in return. He's a soldier without a war, a protector of everyone else's right to be ignorant, lazy, and apathetic. That's when he feels the need to listen to something fast-paced and angry, something that fits with the jagged edges in the back of his mind.

_The pressure's building up inside_

_I gotta let it out tonight_

_Shattered glass will cure my ills and make me feel alright *_

He finds an old warehouse that's been abandoned for years, and proceeds to tear it up. He crashes and stomps through old wooden boxes and pallets, throws himself through dusty windows, leaps up to the rickety catwalks by the ceiling and then falls down on the concrete floor. He screams, and doesn't care if anybody hears.

When he's done he's battered and bruised, bleeding from dozens of cuts and scrapes. He'll heal, though. In 30 hours there won't be a mark on him. But the jagged edges inside remain.

 

<><><>

 

“Got any plans for tonight?”

“Not really, no. Why?”

“Be at the crash house at eight, screen room 38L. Bring snacks.”

“All right.”

Natasha drives off, leaving Steve to wonder what she's planned. A movie night? Could be, but the crash house is an in-company hostel for visiting SHIELD agents, not a place they usually hang out in, so why would she want to meet him there? He shrugs to himself, figuring he'll find out.

He arrives at screen room 38L at ten to eight, and finds it full of people. The tables, chairs, and computer monitors usually found in the screen rooms have been replaced with an assortment of sofas, easy chairs, and large cushions to sit on, all facing the large screen at the far end of the room. A ticker on the screen is counting down to a broadcast by EBU, whatever that is.

“Hey, over here!”

Natasha and Clint shift aside to make room for him on a comfy three seater. He hands Clint a box of Cracker Jack as he sits down, then looks around. He recognises some of the other agents in the room, people he's worked with or just seen around the Triskelion, and it's not long before he realises that everybody in the room, apart from himself, Clint, and a couple of random Australians, is European.

“So, what's this about?” he asks Natasha, and she smiles.

“Only the greatest spectacle on Earth.”

“'Spectacle' is the right word. Not sure if 'greatest' applies, but she insists on watching it every damn year.” Clint grins as Natasha swats at him.

“It's the Eurovision Song Contest. It's what Europe does instead of going to war, these days. Well, mostly. Each member of the European Broadcasting Union sends one three minute song, which is performed live on stage with hundreds of millions of viewers watching from home, and then the viewers vote on which country had the best song. The winning country gets to host the next year's competition.”

“So, it's a bit like that American Idol, then?”

“It is _nothing_ like American Idol. You'll see.”

A trumpeting fanfare signals the start of the broadcast, triggering a cheer from the gathered audience. The following hours are a whirlwind of sparkling, surreal, campy, and occasionally tone-deaf madness. Black leather and sequins; growing dresses and outfits that wouldn't have looked out of place on an Asgardian, or one of the Chitauri; a guy from Iceland who looks like Thor to an amusing degree; sweet songs about love and did that woman from Finland just kiss another woman? And also some rather nimble male dancers doing moves that would've had them sent to the slammer back in the Forties...

Some songs feel earnest in all their seriousness, like the one about the falling birds, others are clearly just meant to be silly fun. Things get confusing when the songs Steve assumes are meant as pure joke entrants are greeted with genuine cheers from the others in the room, such as the opera singing vampire guy from Romania, whom both Natasha and Clint dub the best entry in years (apart from the baking Russian grannies the year before). And then Greece starts singing about free alcohol, the room goes mad, and that's when Steve decides to just go with it.

He agrees with the result, in the end. The Danish song was the worthy winner, although it's the Hungarian entry, “Kedvesem”, that later ends up on his music player.

“So it's like this every year?” he asks Natasha as they exit the crash house.

“Pretty much.”

“Count me in for next year, then. I can't wait to see what else they'll come up with.”

“All right. Then we're watching the semifinals, too. A lot of the really fun stuff gets voted out before the big final.”

“There's even _more_?”

“Yep. And then there's the national selections, which are of varying quality, so if you want to spend a few days on YouTube...”

“Yeah, I think I'll pass, for now. But I'm glad you invited me here tonight, it was fun.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed it, not many Americans get the idea. See you at the gym tomorrow?”

“You bet.”

Natasha waves and saunters off towards her car, where Clint is waiting. Steve starts jogging homewards, and is halfway there before he realises that he's singing “Alcohol is Free” under his breath. **

 

<><><>

 

The first time he hears dubstep he thinks the radio's broken, so he tries turning it off and back on again. But the noise persists, and as he listens he realises that it's probably meant to be some kind of music. The next time a teenager asks for his autograph he asks her how on Earth Skrillex came to happen. She just shakes her head and apologises for her generation.

 

<><><>

 

Some songs hit him like a punch in the gut with what feels very much like truth.

_It's the heart afraid of breaking_

_That never learns to dance._

He never learned how to dance. Not properly. He never thought anyone would want to dance with him, small and skinny as he was, and even when he got bigger he still felt small on the inside. And then he got too busy to dance anyway, what with the War and all. Bucky had tried to teach him some moves once, when they'd been ensconced in an abandoned stone barn somewhere in the south of France. He hadn't been very successful, but it had still been an enjoyable evening – and that one time remained, to this day, the only time Steve Rogers had ever danced with anyone.

_Just remember in the winter_

_Far beneath the bitter snows_

_Lies the seed that with the sun's love_

_In the spring becomes the rose. ***_

He thinks of Bucky, smiling at him in that candlelit barn, and he thinks of the shrieking winds and swirling snow that had buried his body in that godforsaken alpine pass, and then he doesn't listen to any music at all for several days.

**Author's Note:**

> * Lyrics from “Nothing From Something” by The Offspring.
> 
> ** This would be the Eurovision Song Contest final from 2013. All performances can be found on YouTube. 
> 
> *** Lyrics from “The Rose” by Bette Midler.


End file.
